Routine

Howdy, all.

It has been a while but I'm finally getting around to putting together a post. Settling back into routine proved to be a little harder than expected upon returning from vacation but while I'm not yet in the groove, at least I can see it.

One little vacation story to relate and really something kinda cool. On our last day of vacation while heading back toward the highway through Kingston, Ontario my wife asked if we wanted to visit the grave site of Sir John A. Macdonald - 1st prime minister of Canada. While visiting the grave we stretched our legs in the impressive old cemetery. The first thing my son noticed were a number of holes in the ground around one of the tombstones. I assume they were rabbit-holes but it was the only tombstone that sported holes around it. A little creepy to be sure but my son also spied a stick apparently dragged deep into one of the holes. Without a hint of hesitation his arm was suddenly shoulder deep in the hole retrieving the stick. It has since been dubbed "the Ghoul Stick" and is not allowed in the house. A few minutes later I was photographing an impressive family plot when my son came up behind me and said, "Hey, Dad, look at the box I found under that bush!"
I turned and saw my son with the ghoul stick in one hand and in the other he held a sealed Tupperware container completely covered with camouflage tape. Now I had a pretty good idea what was in the box but I told everyone to stand a few feet back while I opened it anyway. Inside was a stamp,an explanatory note, some markers and directions to the next box. I wish I still had the note but it has been misplaced but it explained that this box is part of a game called Atlasquest - basically a scavenger hunt on a grand scale. Check out the website - they're all over the place.

During my first week back I received a rejection letter. I have read somewhere that a rejection letter from the New Yorker is supposedly the holy grail of rejection letters - I forget where. Well, a rejection letter from the New Yorker has no useful information so like any form rejection letter it is exactly that - useless. Here's the letter - note the milky-white stationary.

Speaking of rejections - I had a useful one before going on vacation regarding my story Just Business. In the letter there were suggestions and constructive criticism and from those suggestions and criticisms a story evolved. The story is called Old Timer and I think it's pretty damn fine. It has, of course, been submitted to the magazine that took the time to offer the suggestions.

Finally - and it's funny because as I type this I just received an e-mail from them - The 3 Day Novel Contest is closing in. Each Labour Day Weekend a contest is held to see what kind of novel can be written over the 72 hours of the holiday weekend. I have entered the last 2 years and both novellas - The Platinum Ticket and Patriot - are works of which I am very proud. This year, however, I will take a pass. There are a few reasons - kids start school the day immediately following the weekend and I don't need to be exhausted for that. I am also building a routine in which writing a set amount each and every day is a crucial part of my success. I don't want to mess with the routine just as I'm establishing it. In the past I have found the exercise of the 3 Day Novel extremely rewarding - I highly recommend it to others and will no doubt do it again in the future - but just not this year.

Anyway, speaking of routines - I need to get back to mine...

A long and twisted road…

Well, it’s good to be home.

It was a wonderful epic vacation full of fun and discovery but when all is said and done – there’s no place like home. Throughout the trip there were too many memorable moments to list but I’ll throw out some of the highlights. A Top 10 List, if you will.

1 – Fireflies – On our first night camping in the all but flooded Rideau River Provincial Park I though my fatigued brain was playing tricks on me. As my wife, kids and I were walking back to our campsite in the growing dusk I thought I saw the occasional flash of light. My first impulse was “Fireflies!” but I haven’t seen fireflies since I was a kid. They used to abound – why I remember catching them in jars and reading by the light of their bioluminescence but sadly they’ve vanished from our local landscape. Some say it was excessive crop spraying during the seventies and eighties that did them in (I suppose it could have been kids catching them by the jarload so they could read by their light…) but whatever the reason it was with delight to parallel my children’s that I stared as hundreds of fireflies emerged over the next half hour. If nothing else had happened throughout the trip I would have been satisfied with the secure knowledge that there are still fireflies in the world.

2 – Ottawa’s amazing museums – Split time between the Museum of Natural History (where we reacquainted with a childhood friend of mine, her two kids and the fella she married – the handsdown winner of the Nicest Guy in the World award) and the Museum of Civilization on this trip and didn’t see enough but was fascinated by what I did. Our nation’s capital is packed with quality museums and as the kids grow up I can see any number of weekend trips to take advantage.

3 – The Peace Tower – a very humbling time, visiting the parliament buildings, ascending the Peace Tower and looking at the Books of Remembrance. And if I wasn’t choked up enough as we were heading back to the car what is waiting for me directly across the street from the Eternal Flame and the front steps of Parliament? You guessed it – a life sized statue of Terry Fox.

4 – Quebec City’s 400^th Anniversary – Unfortunately we got rain and very little else from our short stop in Quebec City. With miserable, wet kids not entirely interested in an historic soaked city the only souvenir we came away with was a lovely orange umbrella. Ahh…there’s always next time.

5 – New Brunswick – camping in New Brunswick was heavenly, however we seemed to be rained on every day. We did, however, find time to swim in the frigid waters of the St. John River – to date one of my testicles has seen fit to descend.

6 – Dartmouth and Halifax – a lovely pair of sister cities and actually the reason for our destination. We stayed with a pair of my dearest friends who I haven’t seen in far too long. We also spent some time with my brother in law and his…girlfriend – nah, that’s not right – his..wife – sweet Jesus, better not let him hear me using the W word…ah, nuts – the woman he loves and lives with.

7 – Peggy’s Cove – I’m a moron but I didn’t know that Peggy’s Cove was a tourist spot. Okay, I’ve already admitted I’m a moron – can we move on. I loved the place – as did my son who adventured among the rocks – His quote of the day: “I’m as nimble as a mountain goat…and twice as fast!” It was spectacular and the crashing waves were really something. I’m a little disappointed that I neglected to take a picture of the modern sign warning against venturing too close to the water – basically it reads “Please exercise caution when approaching the sea etc. etc.” Very politically correct and bland – much more poetic is the old sign, cast in bronze and bolted to the rocks.

If you can’t read the inscription it goes like this:

WARNING

Injury and death have rewarded careless sight seers here

The ocean and rocks are treacherous

Savour the sea from a distance

Marvelous – fairly warned be thee, says I.

8 – Mahone Bay and Lunenburg Nova Scotia – It was never our intention to go to Lunenburg on this trip but we needed to go to Mahone Bay because of a story my daughter read in school last year. When we saw that we were only 11 kms from Lunenburg we decided to go. We were well rewarded because it just so happened that the Bluenose II was in port for 2 days only before continuing with her summer schedule. What a treat. We took in the sights of historic Lunenburg but I’m going to let you in on a little secret – Lunenburg is beautiful – but Mahone Bay is prettier by far.

9 – The province of Quebec – Normally I don’t have a lot of good things to say about Quebec but I would be remiss if I left out a mention of the Village d’Antan in Drummondville. It is a spectacular village comprised of real and replica historic buildings from the Drummondville area. You pass through a tunnel under a road to enter the village and it is like passing through a time tunnel. You are greeting by the local priest and the entire village is peopled by folks in period costume going about their daily business from 150 years ago. What a delightful look back in time.

I guess I can’t leave Quebec without relaying an observation…now I have a son who seemed to need to hit every bathroom between Fergus and Halifax, so I got to see my share of bathrooms across the eastern half of this country. Actually, I got to see my share, his share and your share, too! I spent a lot of time hanging around the men’s rooms waiting for my son to finish his business and I need to speak to the handwashing practices observed. Only in Quebec does handwashing seem to be alien to the standard toilet procedures for public restrooms. I can speak only to the men’s room practices but I did not see a single person wash his hands in Quebec and there is a lot of traffic in those roadside rest stations. In many of the roadside washrooms soap and paper towels are not supplied – I guess the attitude is – why bother – ain’t nobody usin’ them anyway. I guess washroom is a bit of a misnomer - should use the French - toilette.

Anyway – just an observation.

10 – There really is no place like home. Our vacation together as a family was priceless but all of us were more than ready to see the bridge on Scotland Street as we came into town. Although the lawn was wild and the vegetable garden was a jungle, we didn’t care.

We were home…safe at home.

Time flies...

It feels like just yesterday that I was writing about DAW’s rejection of my manuscript for Loremaster and the next thing you know it's July 18th and you're readying yourself to go on vacation.

A lot has been going on since last I posted.

Let's start with the story, The Witch. I'd wanted to keep it in the neighbourhood of 8 to 10,000 words but it just didn't want to stay there. It has grown in complexity and the characters are taking on a life of their own. I do have a bit of a cautionary tale here, though. I've been happily working on this story each day, nurturing it and watching it grow. At the end of the day I got into the unfortunate habit of simply reducing my document on the computer screen but not actually saving it. Well, Microsoft had one of their usual security updates that took control of my computer and shut it down without asking me, thank you very much. Imagine my surprise after failing to save my document to see the startup screen of my computer smiling at me one morning. "Oh well," I thought, "no problem at all. Microsoft Word has an automatic recovery system built right in and I know for damn sure that it is set to save every 10 minutes so all I have to do is start up Microsoft Word and I'm back in business." It's a really nice theory that if your computer shuts down unexpectedly Microsoft Word will step up and help you out. And you know what, most times it does... but not this time. I tried and tried but to no avail. As near as I can figure I lost nine pages of really good stuff. Fortunately, it was nine pages that I was able to improve upon during the second, forced rewrite. The Witch is shaping up to be a fine, fine tale.

I heard back from a couple of stories making the rounds. Small Town Secrets, submitted to The Missouri Review, came back with a rejection but it did have a personal note from the reader inviting me to submit other, perhaps slightly shorter work. I've since submitted Small Town Secrets to The Paris Review . I also received a rejection for the story, Just Business from Dark Recesses Press. The person who reviewed Just Business gave me a very detailed explanation regarding the story's rejection. She praised the quality of my writing but told me the story, which concerns a man with a very cavalier attitude toward human traffic, just wasn't what her readers would consider horrific or terrifying. Fair enough. I decided to submit it to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Unlike the rejection from Daw, which was a form letter and as such is to be ignored, these last two rejections actually had useful information and constructive criticism and feedback. I'm feeling optimistic.

The summer is in full swing and it's a busy time with the kids. It's a little unnerving when your five-year-old has a more active social calendar than you do. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that he is a very gregarious five-year-old. One of the things that both kids are signed up for this summer is the reading program at the local library. The five-year-old's program lasts a half hour on Wednesdays before lunch. My daughter's program is on the same day but for an hour in the afternoon. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with this floating hour and a half where I needed to be close to the library but had someone else watching the kids. The first day I use the time to run errands downtown and did a little people watching. On the second day I had no errands to run so I took a notebook with me and planted myself in this incredibly comfortable chair in a quiet section of the second floor of our local library. In the crisp air conditioning, surrounded by countless shelves of books, with the distant sound of kids on the lower level enjoying their reading club, I opened the notebook and tried to come up with something that I could exclusively write during these summer reading club times. Well, the constructive criticism for Just Business was still fresh in my mind so I decided to work on a conversation between a person who deals in very specialized merchandise and a customer. Since then the character, a British gentleman named Alastair Middleman, his family business (in continuous operation for 26 generations), his tragic past and his wayward daughter who now must be put through her apprenticeship in preparation to take over the family business have been occupying many of my waking thoughts. They promise to be an entertaining family and speaking of family...

Today, just before I decided to write this post, I was busy strapping a car carrier to the roof of the Camry in preparation for the start of our family camping vacation. We're heading out to the east coast to visit friends we've not seen in far too long. Along the way will be camping and sightseeing and generally enjoying each other's company. When I get back I'm sure there'll be a host of pictures and a great number of stories to pass along.

Till then behave and play nice.